Water, sewer issues plug plans for Georgina seniors facilities

YorkRegion.com
Nov. 10, 2017
Heidi Riedner

Issues over water and sewer allocation are plugging up plans for a new River Glen Haven (RGH) long-term care facility, as well as potential retirement or assisted living units being built at the current High Street building in Sutton.

RGH is among almost half of Ontario’s long-term care homes in need of renewal, with 35,000 licences set to expire in 2025.

Faced with significant upgrades to its current building to meet Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care regulations driven largely by increased recreation and amenity space, RGH owners ATK Care Group Ltd. plan to build a three-storey, 128-bed facility on the vacant northwest corner of Black River and Dalton roads in Sutton.

While the new facility will be about a third larger than the current building on High Street, the addition of only nine "new" beds are for respite purposes only.

Allocation  — both from the ministry in terms of beds and the town in terms of water and sewer servicing — is to blame for the new build not being bigger.

“I’d like to see more beds (at the new facility), but it is the ministry that determines that,” Mayor Margaret Quirk said, adding her main concern is a potentially empty building, sitting and deteriorating, on High Street for the next 15 years.

That's because there is not enough servicing allocation to facilitate a redevelopment of both sites, according to a staff report tabled at council.

A proposed transfer of water and sewer allocation from the old to the new site presents a problem considering expressed interest in repurposing the current High Street building into either retirement or assisted living units.

Major upgrades to expand the Sutton sewage plant, which would accommodate more growth, were bumped from the region's 10-year capital plan at the last round of budget discussions.

Once a number of developers in the area get their projects off the ground, thereby pushing the usage at the plant to 70 per cent capacity, then it’s a matter of regional council deciding to put it back in the capital plan, the town's director of development services, Harold Lenters, explained.